It has a meager atmosphere provided by massive air-producing factories; thus rebreathers are needed to survive. These factories are automatically run; the atmosphere eventually escapes into space due to the planet's low gravity, but the machines keep producing it.

The surface is covered by barren alkaline-salt flats. Glitterstim web-spinning energy spiders haunt the tunnels of the mines, hunting luminous "bogeys." For years the old Empire held a stranglehold on the planet, and commanded forced-labor spice mines there. They had a fully stocked Imperial garrison there as well. Glitterstim was thus controlled by the Empire; Hutt Lords made deals with corrupt officials, and hired smugglers to make the infamous "Kessel Run" to get their goods... dangerous as the planet is near to "The Maw," a concentration of black holes.

After the fall of Endor, the operations fell from one set of hands to another. Equipment was junked or removed. Finally the mines fell into the hands of Lando Calrissian and Mara Jade, who formed a partnership to make certain the spice was used only for the therapeutic means it was first intended. Super-cooled worker droids are used to dig the spice; many of the tunnels and mazes have run dry and are abandoned.

The planet is potato-shaped, mauve in color, and pretty much abandoned other than the worker droids. It's one city, Kessendra, has likewise been abandoned with the fall of the Empire.